Surviving Home

by Angery American

  I pointed out the general area of the cabins on Sarge’s map.

  He said, “Looks like a good spot. Having the creek there behind it helps it with defense, not to mention having water right at the back door.”

  “Yeah, it’s a nice creek too, good clear water and lots of fish.”

  “Let’s go look at the place then.”

  We took off towards the back of the neighborhood and picked up the trail out into the forest. Sarge and I led the way. He had his boot up on the dash he looked relaxed with the SAW swinging from the loose grip of his right hand. Our route to the cabins on the creek would take us past a small neighborhood, a collection of houses out in the forest, which made me wonder how those folks were doing. The only real issue they would have was water, the creek was about a mile from them and it would be a long walk to haul water.

  I said, “We have to pass some houses up here in a bit, don’t know if there’s anyone there or not, or how they are going to react at seeing us.”

  “Is there a way around ‘em, or do we need to go through ‘em?”

  “We’ll be on a dirt road that runs past them. We could go through the forest around them if we need to.”

  “Let’s see what it looks like when we get close to ‘em. If the road is blocked or looks hinky we’ll go around.”

  The trip through the forest was uneventful, we didn’t see anyone. We picked up the dirt road that would run us past the houses and I told Sarge to keep his eyes open. He nodded and we kept going. Sarge called Ted on the radio and told him to keep his eyes open too. Mike was driving the second buggy and Ted was on the SAW mounted to the passenger side. It didn’t take long to find out if there was anyone around, we came across three of the residents walking down the road.

  Sarge and I saw them at the same time. He sat up in the seat and kept an eye on them as we approached. Hearing us close on them, the three turned and stood on the edge of the road looking at us. They were all young guys, mid-teens from the look of them. Each of them had a rifle of some sort and one of them was holding three or four limbrats by the tail. I slowed as we came abreast of them and they stood there looking at us and at one another nervously.

  Sarge leaned back in the seat, putting a boot back up on the dash. Sarge stretched an arm out and rested it on his knee.

  “Looks like you boys had some luck,” he said. I was sure if he hadn’t broken the ice the three of them would have stood there forever.

  The one holding the squirrels raised them a little, looking at them. “A little. Three limbrats don’t go far though.”

  “Y’all live over here?” I asked.

  The one that answered had long blonde hair sticking out the bottom of a knit watch cap with a skull and cross bones embroidered on it. “Yeah, but most everyone has left. There’s only a few of us left now”, he replied and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie.

  “Where’d they go?” Sarge asked.

  “Some went to stay with family, some went to the camp over there at the range,” Snot Nose said.

  “Are your folks still around?” Sarge asked.

  The one holding the squirrels answered, “Yeah, they’re back at the house.”

  “Can we meet ‘em?” Sarge asked.

  The same one asked, “You guys with the government?”

  Sarge chuckled. “Naw son, we ain’t with the government, I promise you that.”

  “That’s good. Wouldn’t be good to meet my old man if you was.”

  “If y’all want to hop in we’ll give you a lift home and meet your folks,” Sarge said.

  The boys hesitated for a moment, then with a shrug they got in. The blonde-headed one gave directions to their house. It was only one turn off the main dirt road onto a smaller secondary dirt road. After turning off onto the side road, we started to see people through windows and heads poking through open doors. Pulling up in front of the kid’s house, a big burly man stepped out the front door of a tidy doublewide sporting a Real Tree camoed shotgun.

  He stood there taking in the scene as the boys climbed out of the buggy. His eyes shifted from Sarge and I to Mike and Ted, back and forth. He didn’t say anything, just stood there looking with the butt of the turkey gun resting on his hip. The boy that had the squirrels walked onto the porch and spoke quietly to him. What I didn’t see was the other men that were coming up the drive. Mike and Ted did and Mike let us know quietly over the radio. Seeing his backup arrive, the big man finally spoke.

  “What can I do you for you fellas?”

  Sarge stepped out the buggy, leaving the SAW in its mount. The man on the porch shifted the shotgun to a low ready position. Sarge said, “Easy there, friend, we don’t mean no harm. Just saw your boys walking down the road and gave ‘em a lift is all.”

  The man moved his head in a barely perceptible nod. “I ‘perciate it. Anything else?”

  “No, nothing else. They said a bunch of the folks around here have packed up an’ left. Why’d you stay?”

  “We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need no help from no one. The ones that left needed to go.”

  He went on to tell his opinion of people that depended on the government for anything and it wasn’t very flattering. Once he was on that train of thought he seemed to open up a bit and relaxed. Sarge asked how they were holding up and he said that it wasn’t easy but they were getting by. By hunting the woods and making the occasional trip down to the creek for some fishing they were managing to get what they needed. Sarge asked him about how many other people were around, and the man pointed to the five men standing behind us at the edge of his driveway. Aside from them, there were only a couple others.

  Sarge asked him about what the feds were up to around the area. The man said that they had come out once about a week ago and offered people to go to the camp. That was when a bunch of folks left and they didn’t know what happened to them after that. He knew it was at the old bombing range, but it was too far to walk, unless it was a one-way trip and he wasn’t going to do that. He asked what we were doing out in the woods and Sarge told him we were out looking around. It was hard to tell if he believed us or not. Sarge asked him if he was in desperate need of anything.

  “We could use a doctor. One of the younguns is sick, bad water I think,” the man said.

  “Tell you what, we’re gonna go down the road here for a bit then head back. Tomorrow we’ll bring a doc by an he can take a look at your little one.”

  “We’d appreciate it. I’m getting’ pretty worried ‘bout her.”

  We said good bye to them and backed out of the drive. The men standing behind us parted, letting us through. We drove the half-mile down the road to the intersection with the forest road that headed for the creek. The small road to the cabins had seen better days. From the looks of it, during the rainy season the locals had used it for playing with their four by fours. The road was badly rutted, but the good thing about it was that it looked as though no one had been down it. We slowly bounced down the road to the cabins and pulled up to the little gate at the first one.

  The gate was made from pipe, a small piece of chain on the end and a padlock secured it to a post. Climbing out, Sarge reached into the bed of the buggy and pulled out a pair of bolt cutters and had the lock off in no time. We walked up to the little cabin. It wasn’t very fancy, basically just a plywood shack. The door and all the windows had padlocks securing them as well. Sarge handed the bolt cutters to Mike.

  Mike took the big cutters and stepped towards the door, “That last one wear you out? What’s wrong, didn’t take your fiber this morning?”

  Sarge’s reply was a swift kick to Mike’s ass, to which he responded with a “Hey!” while rubbing his cheek.

  “You’ll learn to keep yer mouth shut one of these days,” Sarge replied.

  “No he won’t,”
Ted said and we all laughed.

  Mike cut the lock off, opened the door of the little cabin and stepped in, using his weapon light to illuminate the interior. Ted stood at the door where he could see the buggies outside while the rest of us went in. There was nothing inside. It was one large room with a counter running along the full length of the back wall. All the windows had screens over them with plywood covers over them outside. These were secured with the padlocks and could be raised and propped up to allow airflow in the summer, though at the moment keeping the inside cool was the least of our worries. Heating these things would be the real issue.

  Looking at the place, I was already thinking of how I could put my wood stove in, and I had two kerosene heaters as well. Between these we could heat all of them. The kerosene would run out eventually, but we could get through the winter with them, that winter at least. After looking around the inside, we went out to look at the creek, the source of which was the Alexander Spring, about a mile upriver. The water there would be clean and safe as there were no people in the area to foul it. The run behind the cabin was also full of fish and gators. Large schools of fresh water mullet swam the creek and could easily be netted.

  Sarge said, “We need to get some boats.”

  “We have them,” I said.

  “What have you got?”

  “Between Danny and me we have four kayaks, plus Danny has a canoe and Reggie has one too.”

  “Perfect, they’ll be real handy. I think this would a good place to relocate to for a while. I know you guys don’t want to, but there’s a lot more resources here and it’ll be safer.”

  “Yeah Sarge, it’s just like your poacher’s cabin on the river,” Mike said.

  Sarge just shook his head. “Teddy.”

  Ted kicked Mike in the ass and Mike spun around. “What the hell, man?” Ted just shrugged his shoulders.

  I said, “There’s only three of these things; there’s too many of us. I mean, I have five people, and there’s Danny and his wife, Reggie, Thad, Jeff and you guys—where’s everyone going to stay?”

  “You an’ your family take one, Danny and his wife can take one. The rest of us will use the third. You gotta remember that we won’t all be inside here at the same time. There’s gonna be plenty of work and security to pull, so it ain’t gonna be too bad,” Sarge said.

  “I guess we’ll make it work if you think we need to move. I know my girls aren’t going to be happy about it.”

  “They may not be happy, but they’ll be alive,” Sarge replied flatly.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  We returned home the way we came and the whole time I thought about moving. How we would even get everything moved, what we would take. It was a lot to take in; it wasn’t like packing a U-Haul in the old days. Trying to move everyone with just the Suburban, some four-wheelers and Sarge’s little battle wagons would take a bunch of trips, not to mention fuel, which there was precious little of.

  We made it back the neighborhood without seeing anyone, which I was very thankful for. There had been too much killing, too much shit for my taste. I was no soldier, no warrior, just a dad and a husband and that’s all I wanted to be.

  We went back to Reggie’s house and had a short meeting. Danny, Doc, Jeff, and the rest of us stood around the old picnic table shooting the shit for minute. There was a little talk about the night before, though Mike and Ted did give a quick rundown on their assault on the trailers. I wasn’t too interested in the details. The talk finally got around to what was next and Sarge suggested we start the move the next day. Danny was on board with that and I halfheartedly backed him up. Sarge let the issue drop without saying anything and moved on to his next plan.

  “I want to go out and take a look at the camp over at the range and we’ll need to do it during the day,” Sarge said.

  “How you wanna go about it?” Jeff asked.

  “We need to be careful with this. I’ll leave the operational things up to Ted and Mike. How do y’all want to go about it?” Sarge asked.

  Mike and Ted shared a glance, then Ted spoke. “I think we need to take both battle buggies and two four-wheelers as outriders. When we get to the range we’ll need at least two to stay with the machines as back up for those going to take a look. We need to have a SAW on each buggy and those going in need to take Sarge’s SPW.”

  The talk went on around the table for a while until a plan was ironed out. We would go out before daylight tomorrow. We weren’t sure where to get a look, as there was a fence all the way around the range and some thick brush between the fence and the actual range. There were two entrances, one on the east side, one on the west. I didn’t think we would be welcomed at either one, so we were going to have to find a way in.

  Sarge passed out MREs to everyone for dinner. Danny and I both took a pass as I knew there would be something at home. I told Danny to bring Bobbie down and we would talk while we had dinner together. With that we told Sarge and the guys we would be back in the morning. He wanted us back at 3:30. I rolled my eyes at him and he just shook his head and said, “Pussy.” I smiled at him and got on the Polaris and headed home.

  Mel had made a shepherds pie for dinner using ground venison and instant potatoes. Thankfully, the pan was big enough for everyone. Mel came into the living room and gave me a kiss and a hug, then commented on my need for a shower. I hadn’t taken one that morning and knew I needed to, so I told her I would go freeze my ass off and get cleaned up. She was happy when I told her Danny and Bobbie were coming down for dinner as she hadn’t seen anyone but the girls in days.

  The water was cold and made for a quick shower. Getting out and drying off and putting on some clean clothes felt so damn good. After pulling on some clean socks, I walked out to the kitchen to find the girls still at the table.

  It was nice to sit with them and talk, a brief moment of normal. The girls were playing a round of tic-tac-toe and I got in on it with them, passing the paper back and forth, laughing at one another as we took turns. The dogs barking outside announced that Danny and Bobbie were there and soon they were knocking at the door. Since the girls had already eaten, we shooed them away from the table so we could sit together. They went into the living room and messed around on Jeff’s iPad, and I felt even more respect for him realizing that he had never asked for it back. We ate our dinner and talked amongst ourselves.

  The talk finally got around to the move. Danny brought it up when he asked about the cabins. I told him what they were like and the girls were immediately against it. Mel asked about the chickens and what we would do with them, about bathroom facilities and how that would be handled. When I told her we would probably have to use an outhouse of some sort, she was really not happy. Danny and I tried to get across to them that we were not convinced yet that we needed to move, but we might have to and we should start getting ready just in case.

  The conversation carried on for a while longer about the why and why not’s of moving until Lee Ann came back into the kitchen with a Scrabble board in her hands wanting to play. The rest of the evening was spent playing. Little Bit came in and sat in my lap and the two older girls joined in the game. The game took an hour or so and when we finished it was time to head for bed as Danny and I needed to get up early. The girls gave hugs and kisses and Mel and I walked Danny and Bobbie out. Mel carried the pan with the leftovers in it out for the dogs, who were very happy. Once they were headed towards the gate we went back in and started shutting the house down.

  After tucking the girls into bed and making sure all the doors were locked, Mel and I went to bed. I was leaning my carbine beside the bed when Mel pinched my ass. She was only wearing her bra and panties and quickly dropped those and climbed into bed.

  “You’re clean enough now,” she said as she patted the bed.

  I smiled at her and turned off the light.

  I hadn�
��t told Mel what we were doing, so when I got up at 3:00 she was curious. I told her we were going to check something out and I would be back soon. She told me to hurry because the girls wanted to spend some time with me, pointing out that I had been absent a lot recently. I told her I would try and kissed her, collected my gear and headed out.

  Danny was already at Reggie’s when I got there and the rest of the guys were milling about getting gear ready and loading the machines. Reggie and Jeff volunteered to stay behind and keep an eye on the place. Sarge, Doc and Thad would ride in Sarge’s buggy. Mike and Ted would take the other, Danny and I would be the outriders. We performed a radio check using Sarge’s radios and headsets and then the old man laid out a map, a surprisingly good map, on the picnic table.

  What he had wasn’t a map at all but a hybrid satellite map. Using that, he picked out the area he wanted us to look at. It was on the north side and we were on the south side so we would have to work our way around the range. With our destination selected, Sarge looked to Danny and I for the route in. What he wanted was a route that wouldn’t go anywhere near our route from last night. I told him we could use the route I had walked in on; it would take us to the west of the range and bring us up on the north side. Using my index finger, I traced the route out on the map.

  Sarge nodded his head as I traced the route. He then picked two rally points out, one for the ride in, one for while we were there, and then pointed out the route to use on the way back. It would take us to the east into the forest before turning south to head home. With the plan laid out and everyone confident in it we headed for our vehicles.